Fresh art at Australia’s Sydney Airport

A hard-to-miss work of art made up of 28 large flags now hangs from the ceiling in the international terminal at Australia’s Sydney Airport.

United Neytions is by noted contemporary artist Archie Moore and highlights the diversity of Aboriginal histories and cultures in Australia.

Archie Moore’s United Neytions. Photo Anna Kucera at Sydney Airport

Moore said the artwork celebrates issues of place and identity and that installing it at the airport allows the flags to adopt a scale and status more often given to international flags.

Having the flags at the airport draws attention not only to the “histories, voices and presence of local indigenous people on whose traditional lands the airport lies,” said Moore but also to “the passages of cultures, pasts, territories, ages and cultural knowledges that airports foster.”

Sydney Airport has a partnership with Australia’s Museum of Contemporary Art, which chose to bring this work to the international terminal.

Here’s a short video from an earlier installation of the work in which artist Archie Moore describes the piece in more detail, including what each flag represents and why he chose the spelling of “Neytion” for the title.

Heading to or through Sydney Airport? Let us know what the piece looks like in its new home.